Good all around laptop ?

[Midnitewarrior4]

So I'm looking to replace my trusty Toshiba Satellite p850, served me well for the 2 years I've had it, got it as the floor model when it was being replaced by the new model so I got a decent deal for 700$ cad.

Where I stand now is that it still serves me good but I'm looking for something that is a little better and newer.

I need something with similar specs

I7, 8gb ram, dedicated gpu, 1tb hdd, 15 Inch display, and decent battery

I use my laptop for school, gaming when I'm at my dad's house and when my desktop is down, rendering gopro footage on the go and the usual stuff a laptop is used for,

My budget would be again around the 700-800$ range if you can get me something decent in that range that would be great, I don't know much about laptops so that's why I'm asking here, thanks in advance !

[Midnitewarrior4]

Currently I'm with a i7-3630qm, 8gb ram, 1tb 5400rpm, 15.6 inch 768p TN screen, gt630m 2gb,

[vanished]

It sounds like it should still be sufficient.  Unless you need a GPU upgrade, perhaps you just need to swap out the HDD for an SSD.  Made my laptop (older than yours) feel like brand new.

 

update: that's a lie; it feels way faster than when it was brand new

Edited November 30, 2015 by Ryan_Vickers

[Midnitewarrior4]

It sounds like it should still be sufficient. Unless you need a GPU upgrade, perhaps you just need to swap out the HDD for an SSD. Made my laptop (older than yours) feel like brand new.

update: that's a lie; it feels way faster than when it was brand new

would get an SSD but a 1tb ssd is a little expensive for me to get just to get some faster load times, but ya looking for a gpu upgrade along with just having a newer upgraded platform, along with better cooling cause this thing can probably run against a ref 290x while gaming, goes from 30-100 real quick (seriously)

[sirtoby]

You've got a few problems there. First, your requirement don't match with your budget very well. Your Canadian Pesos seem to be pretty worthless at the moment, so I'd save at least another 200-300$, sou you can get something like a 940m.  Anything under that will only beat the iGPU by a few percent. The other problem, is that manufacturers start using 15W CPUs in bigger notebooks, so you'll have to watch out when searching, as there are quite a few dual core i7s out there, which are basically pointless, as they're i5's with slightly higher clock speeds

[Midnitewarrior4]

You've got a few problems there. First, your requirement don't match with your budget very well. Your Canadian Pesos seem to be pretty worthless at the moment, so I'd save at least another 200-300$, sou you can get something like a 940m. Anything under that will only beat the iGPU by a few percent. The other problem, is that manufacturers start using 15W CPUs in bigger notebooks, so you'll have to watch out when searching, as there are quite a few dual core i7s out there, which are basically pointless, as they're i5's with slightly higher clock speeds

ya that's what I was afraid of I love canada but hate it at the same time, ya I've noticed those dual core i7's like wtf is up with those ? , I might just keep my laptop for abother year or two if I can't find anything, could you recommend anything in the 900 ish range ?

[sirtoby]

ya that's what I was afraid of I love canada but hate it at the same time, ya I've noticed those dual core i7's like wtf is up with those ? , I might just keep my laptop for abother year or two if I can't find anything, could you recommend anything in the 900 ish range ?

I can only guess why manufacturers are using more low power i7s. I assume it's the combination of longer battery life and the fact that they can get away with an easier cooling system. Unfortunately, I can't really give you a reccomendation, as I'm not very familiar with the Canadian market, especially regarding pricing. You may get some good student discounts, so keep that in mind. You should also take a look at some clevo/sager latops. AFAIK you can get them in Canada at XoticPC and Mythologic. These are especially great if you've already got spare Ram or a spare Harddrive.

EDIT: Intel also introduced quadcore i5s on mobile with the Skylake M series. These are prober quadcores without hyperthreading, and can be by the "HQ" at the end (i5-6300HQ for example)

[Midnitewarrior4]

I can only guess why manufacturers are using more low power i7s. I assume it's the combination of longer battery life and the fact that they can get away with an easier cooling system. Unfortunately, I can't really give you a reccomendation, as I'm not very familiar with the Canadian market, especially regarding pricing. You may get some good student discounts, so keep that in mind. You should also take a look at some clevo/sager latops. AFAIK you can get them in Canada at XoticPC and Mythologic. These are especially great if you've already got spare Ram or a spare Harddrive.

EDIT: Intel also introduced quadcore i5s on mobile with the Skylake M series. These are prober quadcores without hyperthreading, and can be by the "HQ" at the end (i5-6300HQ for example)

ok will look into thanks, just wish the Canadian dollar was where it was 3 years ago so I could get a decent laptop

[exercutor5]

You should save a little bit more money and get this

 

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(2,340,0)ec

[vanished]

would get an SSD but a 1tb ssd is a little expensive for me to get just to get some faster load times, but ya looking for a gpu upgrade along with just having a newer upgraded platform, along with better cooling cause this thing can probably run against a ref 290x while gaming, goes from 30-100 real quick (seriously)

You don't need a 1 TB SSD (I'm betting - you don't actually have 1 TB of applications do you?).  I had a 750 GB HDD in my laptop and I've switched to a 240 GB SSD and it's more than enough for the system, my apps, and the files I'm working with at any given time.  You could grab a $20 external enclosure and put your existing drive in there for mass storage of things that don't need the speed (your files).  And it's so much more than loading times.  Have you used one?  So much of what makes Windows a pain is just gone with an SSD - waiting for a minute or more for everything to become usable after logging in - gone!  System generally slowing down over time and needing to be reinstalled every year - gone!  etc. etc. The benefits are way more than just boot and app loading times.  Plus, you'll save about 0.5 to 1 watts on battery lengthening run times by perhaps 40 mins, reduce the noise of your system (and I'm not talking in theory; never knew how loud my HDD was until I took it out!) and make your system much more resilient (laptops get tossed around and rotated in all sorts of bad ways.  Ways that can kill an HDD.  SSDs are virtually immune to this).

 

You've got a few problems there. First, your requirement don't match with your budget very well. Your Canadian Pesos seem to be pretty worthless at the moment, so I'd save at least another 200-300$, sou you can get something like a 940m.

Agreed.  Generally speaking, any laptop under about $1000 is not worth using IMO, and with our dollar like it is right now, that means you'd be spending more like $1300 for something decent (better than a 940M at that point though, most likely )

[Midnitewarrior4]

You don't need a 1 TB SSD (I'm betting - you don't actually have 1 TB of applications do you?). I had a 750 GB HDD in my laptop and I've switched to a 240 GB SSD and it's more than enough for the system, my apps, and the files I'm working with at any given time. You could grab a $20 external enclosure and put your existing drive in there for mass storage of things that don't need the speed (your files). And it's so much more than loading times. Have you used one? So much of what makes Windows a pain is just gone with an SSD - waiting for a minute or more for everything to become usable after logging in - gone! System generally slowing down over time and needing to be reinstalled every year - gone! etc. etc. The benefits are way more than just boot and app loading times. Plus, you'll save about 0.5 to 1 watts on battery lengthening run times by perhaps 40 mins, reduce the noise of your system (and I'm not talking in theory; never knew how loud my HDD was until I took it out!) and make your system much more resilient (laptops get tossed around and rotated in all sorts of bad ways. Ways that can kill an HDD. SSDs are virtually immune to this).

Agreed. Generally speaking, any laptop under about $1000 is not worth using IMO, and with our dollar like it is right now, that means you'd be spending more like $1300 for something decent (better than a 940M at that point though, most likely )

well before I did a fresh install of windows my hdd was at 650 gb of space used, and it's slowly creeping up now and is at 250-300 right now, and yes I have used an ssd, I have one in my main pc, I can deal with the slow load times and the slow downs my main thing is to have a better gpu, this one is ok but I can't even use it on higher end games since the thing gets so dam hot (100 degrees ) that I have to use integrated which defeats the purpose of a dedicated gpu, also wish I could get a better resolition screen and better battery.

Oh and along with the hdd abuse, my laptop has a feature that as soon as it feels vibration it stops the r/w head and keeps it out of the way of the platters to not damage them,

[Midnitewarrior4]

And for 1400$ I may as well make a 900$ gaming pc to leave at my dad's and buy a cheap laptop for school

[Midnitewarrior4]

You should save a little bit more money and get this

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(2,340,0)ec

1300$ is a little high but I think I may look around on their site I like how you can customize it, might see if there's something else

[vanished]

Oh and along with the hdd abuse, my laptop has a feature that as soon as it feels vibration it stops the r/w head and keeps it out of the way of the platters to not damage them,

That's pretty common I think.  Mine has that too.  It's still not going to be nearly as safe as just having an SSD though.

 

But you answered that whole point of where you want to allocate the money anyways so whatever

[Midnitewarrior4]

That's pretty common I think.  Mine has that too.  It's still not going to be nearly as safe as just having an SSD though.

 

But you answered that whole point of where you want to allocate the money anyways so whatever

ya really wish laptops would be cheaper, i went on eurocom and they have good prices but they also make no sense, like has a i7-6700hq but has 4gb of ram with now os and a 500gb hdd, and 4 extra gb of ram is 100$ and an os is 10$ which makeds the thing super expensive, so i gotta try and find a cheaper model that still has a decent cpu and gpu and ill try to get a cherap windows key and some ram

[Midnitewarrior4]

http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-gl551jwwh71wx-p-8771.html

[Midnitewarrior4]

 

http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-gl551jwwh71wx-p-8771.html what about this thing ? about 1050 cad

[sobe]

No matter what you end up with, I definitely suggest looking at SSD. For a laptop, an SSD is simply fantastic and can also help with battery life.

[Midnitewarrior4]

No matter what you end up with, I definitely suggest looking at SSD. For a laptop, an SSD is simply fantastic and can also help with battery life.

i know, but i need mass storage so im looking for a laptop that can have two drives

[vanished]

i know, but i need mass storage so im looking for a laptop that can have two drives

There are plenty out there but none that are cheap AFAIK

As for that link, yeah wow, that's actually really good for the money unless I've missed something.

[exercutor5]

http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-gl551jwwh71wx-p-8771.html what about this thing ? about 1050 cad

 

This thing looks thick imo.

[Midnitewarrior4]

This thing looks thick imo.

says 0.60-1.30 inches thick